Ogwaros Iwenâl

David Lynch is to weirdness as Michael Bay is to pointless explosions.  Except at least with Lynch, something worthwhile sometimes comes out of the weirdness.  Such is Mulholland Drive (IMDB, Netflix), which is actually very straight forward when you start to really think about it.

Mulholland Drive is a movie about hopes, dreams and desires.  Both the best and the worst aspects of these are on display.  Naomi Watts plays Betty, a bright eyed starlet-to-be who has come to Hollywood to act.  Betty takes in Rita, a sultry amnesiac who shows up after a car accident carrying nothing but a purse filled with money and a mysterious blue key.  Rita’s only memory is of where she was going when the accident occurred – Mulholland Drive.

Meanwhile, a director named Adam Kesher is having no end of problems; he finds his wife cheating on him, powerful players in the industry are interfering with his film, and he is being watched.  In short, his life is really starting to look bleak.  And Adam’s only hope is the advice of a man called simply The Cowboy.

Did I mention there are gratuitous lesbian sex scenes?  Mmm… Naomi Watts.

Okay, the sex scenes are not as gratuitous as they seem at first.  The first half of the movie is permeated by a dream-like quality.  Everything sparkles and shines.  Characters seem like they were plucked out of the 1950s.  Things happen that seem out of place, things that do not seem to fit the flow of the movie.  Even the acting seems quite poor.  However, the second half of the movie makes it clear why all of these things are in fact intentional.

The dividing line between the first half and second half is perhaps the most poignant scene of the movie.  As Rita’s memory returns, Betty and Rita visit the night club Silencio.  The club specializes in playing recordings of music while performers pretend to play along.  Towards the end of the scene, a singer mouths along to a particularly moving Spanish song.  Both Betty and Rita are moved to tears by its beauty.  Suddenly, the singer freezes, passes out, and is dragged off stage all while the recorded song continues.  The illusion is broken.

Very soon after, the illusion of the first half of the movie is broken.  Because the thing that hopes and dreams have in common is illusion.  They are the lies we tell ourselves, for good and for ill.  When the illusion is broken, all we are left with is cold reality.  In this way, Mulholland Drive feels simultaneously like a love letter to and indictment of Hollywood.  Praising the dream of Hollywood and what it provides movie patrons.  Damning the reality of it all.

The genius in this clean division is that characters we’ve grown to like in the first half are suddenly flipped on their heads.  Normally I would condemn this sort of storytelling but it works especially well here, and is perfectly suited to Lynch’s directorial style.  Once Pandora’s Box is opened, even hope escapes.  The idyllic world view is gone making way for a very cruel and spiteful replacement.  It makes for a very heartbreaking movie in the end.

Mulholland Drive isn’t for everyone.  Lynch’s weirdness can definitely be a turn off, as some of it seems simply to be there to set mood.  But love it or hate it, I highly recommend that you watch it.

Glory (IMDB, Netflix)

I wasn’ t nearly as impressed with Glory as I thought I might be.  For most of the movie I felt like I had seen dozens like it, though I cannot pinpoint any particular examples.  Denzel Washington’s performance is alternately Oscar-worthy and insipid standard Denzel fare.  Worth watching, I guess.

Star Trek III – The Search for Spock (IMDB, Netflix)

I used to really hate this movie.  There are certainly plenty of things to hate about The Search for Spock.  Kirk’s parting shot to the Klingon commander is particularly stupid: “I have had enough of you!”  Dude, he just killed your son, and that is what you say as you kick him to his doom?  Whatever.

But there’s some great stuff in here.  Stealing the Enterprise, for instance.  The underlying story of dealing with death, with having another mind trapped inside of your own, and putting your dearest friend to rest could have been a truly great movie, Star Trek or otherwise.  It’s a pity then that the themes are so muddled and the story little more than an excuse to resurrect Spock.  Still, it was certainly a lot more watchable than my memory indicated.

Troll 2 (IMDB, Netflix)

You must watch this movie.  Troll 2 is simply deliciously awful.  This 10 minute clip of scenes from the movie doesn’t do it justice.  The entire movie is that terrible, or worse.  You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll scream “Oh my gaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwd,” you’ll be confused as to how this movie ever got released, or how anyone involved ever thought it might be a good idea.

Troll (IMDB, Netflix)

Not to be confused with the unrelated Troll 2, which merely took the name for marketing purposes.  Troll is about Harry Potter’s struggle against an evil wizard and his magical minions.  No, seriously, the character’s name is Harry Potter.  Which caused me to laugh hysterically every single time the character’s full name was mentioned.

Troll isn’t really a bad movie, though it contains plenty of unintentionally funny moments.  But I’m not sure what it wants to be.  A few parts of it are pretty horrific for a kids movie, while most of it is too kiddy to be a horror movie.  In that respect, it fails where the wonderful Gremlins succeeds.

Wallace and Grommit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit (IMDB, Netflix)

Best kids movie I’ve watched in a while.  I had a goofy grin on my face for most of the movie.  It does drag out in parts, especially since the answer to the mystery is so patently obvious.  Still, pretty fun.

Scanners (IMDB, Netflix)

Cronenberg, science gone amok, and killer telepaths.  What’s not to like?  Well, besides the acting and a ridiculous subplot where a telepath interfaces with the “nervous system” of a 1980s computer.  Not nearly a classic as Cronenberg’s The Fly, but good concept none-the-less.

Fred Claus – I’m not sure why I watched this one, but I was surprised how it wasn’t 100% terrible.  It was mostly awkward.  Not quite a kids movie, not quite a movie for adults.  I liked Kevin Spacey as the terribly clichèd evil lawyer trying to shut down Christmas because he didn’t get a present from Santa when he was a kid (oops, spoiler alert!).  Oh the irony that it was a Superman cape that he had asked for and not received.  Who knew this was the origin story for Lex Luthor?  On that note, Superman Returns was terrible.

Not recommended, at all.

Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan – It really surprised me how little I liked this one.  I remember it being my third favorite Star Trek movie, and yet the movie is so bland.  The cinematography – particularly the scenes of Khan on the Reliant – just bores and revolts me.  The score by James Horner is okay, but is entirely inappropriate for Star Trek.  The whole “Kirk feels old” theme is really hamfisted in its implementation.

The movie really has two things going for it – actual submarine space battles, and life/death on a starship (particularly the death of Spock).  It does both things extremely well, but they don’t fully make up for its shortcomings.

Grave of Fireflies – Children struggle to survive in WWII era Japan.  Wanted to hate it, wanted to dismiss the inevitable tragedies, but in the end I couldn’t do it.  The ending got to me a bit.  Not fantastic, but good.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director’s Cut – Instead of going to see the new Star Trek movie, I’m going through the old ones again.  The first movie is great in its director’s cut form.  At some point I’ll have to watch the original theatrical version, just to really appreciate how much the director’s cut tightens things up.  Wonderful soundtrack.  Just don’t watch it late at night – not exactly the most action packed of movies.

The Final Cut – Robin Williams is a Cutter, a man who takes the best parts of a person’s life, cuts away all the unpleasant ones, and compiles them into a memorial video upon the person’s death.  This career path was influenced by a traumatic event in his childhood; one whose reality is called into question when an old friend appears in the memories of a recently deceased client.

The movie introduces some interesting ideas about the pros and cons about having your entire life recorded.  Williams does a surprisingly decent job in his role.  Unfortunately, rather than simply focus on this character the movie decides to try to balance this with a thriller plot, and does so poorly.  You will figure out the ending a good hour before it happens, and all you can do is watch as it skids there.  What a waste.

Hitman – Timothy Oliphant tries to play an action hero.  Due to various circumstances (script, direction, editing, and his own acting), he fails.  Based on the hit (HAR!) video game series, this movie offers up a bunch of uninvolving conspiracies and lifeless action sequences.

The best moment?  When the hero crashes through a hotel balcony door to find two kids playing Hitman.  The movie does this without any trace of irony or humor.  As if a movie that was adapted from a video game needs to nod to it by featuring the video game in the movie!

Not even the lead actress cavorting toplessly (multiple times!) can save this one.

Blood Diamond – A decent action/adventure that thinks a bit too highly of itself.

Cashback – A strange movie that has absolutely no idea what it wants to be.  Is this a romantic drama?  A college sex comedy?  A sci-fi erotica thriller?  A pretentious arthouse film?  I honestly don’t know.  It defies genre categorization which would be a great thing if it weren’t so incohesive.  It’s extremely well shot in portions, though, and I can’t say it was a complete waste of time.

Futurama: Bender’s Game – There is something horribly wrong with these Futurama direct-to-DVD movies.  Yes, it’s still Futurama.  But none of these movies have had enough energy to sustain their full running times.  And they don’t work when split up into 30 minute episodes either.  Just weak overall.  I did get a few laughs out of it, though.

Let The Right One In is a Swedish film about a twelve-year-old boy named Oskar and his relationship with a young girl named Eli.  Oskar is bullied constantly at school.  Sometimes it’s innocuous name calling; he’s called a pig despite his skinniness.  Other times the bullying turns violent, as when he is whipped with a switch in the school yard, severely scratching Oskar’s face as he stands silently.  “I fell on a rock” he explains to his mother.

One night, Eli moves nextdoor with her father.  Her father is a loner who rejects invitations to hang out with the neighbors.  Eli is a strange child, who smells funny, who isn’t bothered by the cold, and seemingly only comes out at night.  But she is quite lonely, and quickly forms a bond with Oskar.  Young love is a sweet, if awkward, thing.

Did I mention that Eli is a vampire?

Yes, Let The Right One In is a vampire movie.  But mostly in the fact that one of the main characters is a vampire.  For the most part, though, it is a meditation on youth, young love, and the nature of violence.  These thematic elements elevate Let The Right One In above its “grr argh” brethren.

The relationship between Oskar and Eli is sweet, awkward and often disturbing.  On the surface, the story is about two lonely twelve year olds falling for each other.  But, being a vampire, Eli is in fact much older than she appears.  While she could be a twelve year old in mind, there are dark hints that she may be manipulating Oskar for her own purposes.

What reasons would you apply violence?  To feel powerful?  To fit in with others?  Revenge?  For food?  To protect the one you love?  Or would you rather die than live with violence?  We see instances of each of these in the film, to the varying reactions of the characters.

Sound is very important to the mood of the film.  Vampire hunger mixes in sounds of a low growling as that of a rumbling stomach and that of lips smacking hungrily.  The sharpness of the crunching of snow fits with the bleak winter landscapes.  The score for the film is quite excellent, though sparsely used.  The cinematography of the film is well done, mixing in elements of horror in appropriate scenes.  The well-shot penultimate scene is simultaneously shockingly violent and hauntingly beautiful.

In short, I really love this film, but I don’t know how I feel about the events of the film.  It’s sweet and beautiful, yet creepy and disturbing.  There’s a great amount of ambiguity in the film, which works in its favor.  Without going into spoilers, I’m conflicted about whether the ending is happy or sad.  It will depend on your own perspective on things.  I’ve watched it twice and still haven’t decided.

I think I may read the original novel, though I’m afraid the extra detail a novel can provide will remove that ambiguity…

Recommended, though I would highly recommend watching it in the original Swedish with English subtitles.  And with the theatrical subtitles if at all possible.

-.- .. … …

I was at Target the other day looking at PC games when a clearance sign caught my eye. Lost: Via Domus was one of the marked down titles. I remembered that the game got fairly terrible reviews, certainly not worth fifty dollars when it came out.  But for today, the game was a mere five dollars.  Keep in mind that Lost: Via Domus came out February of this year, as a tie in to the premiere of season 4 of the show.  What kind of shovelware TV tie-in gets marked down to 10% of its price within less than a year?  I decided to find out (it was only five dollars, right?).

After playing the game, I can say it is very much a case of getting both what you expect and what you paid.

You play as an amnesic photojournalist who is being hunted by an assassin. It seems you took a few incriminating photos prior to crashing on the island that someone doesn’t want published.  Your quest is to piece together your past so you know why you are being stalked, and to explain the ghost of a woman that is following you as well.

The setup is fairly good – uniquely suited to a Lost game, given the flashback structure the show and game both use – but execution falls down in so many aspects.  Perhaps the most obvious is gameplay – Lost: Via Domus is an adventure game.  Or rather, it is a poor adventure game.  Most of the game consists of walking from point A to B, picking up objects and trading them, fixing electrical panels and passing intelligence tests.  Most of the items you pick up are useless except to trade for more slightly less useless items.  You must purchase a gun at one point – you may buy extra ammo, but you won’t need to shoot it more than three times during the whole game.

The other significant component to a typical adventure game is speaking with other characters.  This is an utter failure in Lost for several reasons.  First and foremost, the script is awful.  Characters randomly spout lines from the show, as if the player is supposed to gleefully cheer and think “I remember that line!”  Such lines will merely confuse players not familiar with the show and feel like patronizing fanservice (if it can be even called that) to hardcore fans.

For instance, early on John Locke randomly tells the player “I don’t want to leave this island.”  No context is given as to why he would not want to leave the island – and you are given no option to ask him why.  So if you have never watched the show, almost nothing anyone says will make sense.  If you have watched the show, there is no point in talking to anyone, except to trigger events to move the game along.  The lack of even basic conversation branching makes talking to anyone boring and tedious.

Then there are the graphics.  By trying to replicate the actors on the show, the game sits well within the uncanny valley.  All of the characters – except the ones created specifically for the game – look like horrific living-dead versions of themselves.  Marvel at zombie Hurley, who looks like a fat little midget who has gorged himself on ten too many brains!  And there’s zombie Ben, who… actually, Ben looks more or less accurate, thanks to how wonderfully creepy Michael Emerson looks.

The voice acting doesn’t help with the uncanny valley effect.  Very few actors from the show reprise their role, and as such very few of the characters sound correct.  As an added bonus, the acting itself is horrible and shows very little direction.

In fact, the less the actual Lost characters are involved, the better the game feels.  Some of the later flashbacks within the game are pretty well put together.  But when the main characters get involved, things tend to fall apart.  It does not help that the beach is typically populated with a maximum of five main characters at once.  There were 48 survivors of Oceanic 815 – where are they?  A much better game would have focused on characters we haven’t seen (such as the main character of the game) with sparse interactions with the “A-team” as Charlie puts it in the game.

I do have to give the game credit in a few places.  The music seems to be variations on the themes from the show, without reproducing them verbatim ad-nauseum.  The direction style of the cut scenes (voice acting excluded) is quite interesting and in the same vein as the show.  Breaking up the game into episodes works quite well.  And there is also a very handy “Previously on Lost” feature that recaps previous episodes for you.  Unfortunately, these are played at the beginning of each episode even if you just beat the previous episode, not just when loading the game.  They are also unskippable, which becomes a pain when you die and have to sit through it all over again.

A good Lost adventure game is possible.  This simply is not it.  Not recommended, even for five dollars.